Can we get some injury updates please?
Danny Ings is doing quite well, he’s got a chance of being available tomorrow. So that’s good news for us but we’ve got to really assess it and see how he is. We’re not quite 100 per cent sure on him yet. Gianluca is not available. Kurt Zouma is not available. Maxwel Cornet is not available.
How difficult it is for Danny? He’s so keen to start his new challenge.
He’s desperate to get back. He’s really disappointed he picked up an injury in the first 15-20 seconds of the game. Look, we hope that he’s fine. He’s certainly not 100 per cent and we wouldn’t be thinking or expecting him to be but having him around is a big boost, he’s an important player for us. He’s a really good signing for us in January. I like him a lot and hopefully he goes on to prove that.
Is he the sort of character because he’s had a few injuries to just take it in his stride?
I think anybody who has had injuries is always affected, especially players when they are experienced. But I think when you move to a new club you are really disappointed if you can’t help your new team and want to show the supporters how well you can play. I think everybody knows what he’s capable of and let’s hope that he’s able to show that in the coming weeks, months and years to come as well.
Are Gianluca Scamacca and Kurt Zouma not ready at all?
Not ready for this weekend, no.
Any prognosis for those two?
They are all getting better. You’d hope that the healing process would be getting them in the right direction but I couldn’t give you exact dates on any of them but hopefully they are going in the right direction.
Maxwel Cornet back at the training ground?
No, he’s gone back to France again. He’s not ready yet to be stepping up to training levels so we just need to bring him on and hopefully we get him back as quick as he can.
At the risk of creating a headline, would you call it a setback?
No, I think behind the scenes we never really expected him to be back yet but we were hoping he might be but we don’t think he’s quite ready yet. He needs to get a bit more pitch work done, he’s back doing a lot more work in the gym. He’s exercising, he’s not feeling his calf muscle anymore, he’s feeling much better. But if you’re talking about him being back to 100 per cent yet, no. He’s probably 60-70 per cent and it won’t be too long.
The results table for 2023 actually looking pretty impressive. What’s the feeling around the place?
We’ve had a couple of really good results. Win in the cup against Derby was another boost to us. We kept a clean sheet which goes well. But I think when you’re fighting for results you’re looking for positives everywhere you can. We got a great win against Everton a week or so ago. So we want to build on it, we want to get that momentum, we want to try and charge on.
Are you getting a sense that you can now move on and put the not so good spell behind you?
I believe we can. I think we’ve got a good side, we’ve got a good group of players. We’ve not shown it as much as we should have done and we have to do that now. We’re not quite at the business end of the season yet but we’re getting closer to it. We’re halfway through now and we have to try and perform but thankfully the last couple of games I think we have won three out of four in the last in the last bundle of games. It’s given us something to talk about, feel much more positive, bit more confidence around the team and it’s great to see Jarod [Bowen] scoring a few goals, Micky Antonio back on the scoresheet so that will do them a world of good.
A good week for Newcastle?
Yeah, by the way great achievement for Newcastle. Great achievement for Eddie Howe and how they’ve done in a year. Where they were this time last season about to where they are now, just shows you how football can change at times. Congratulations to them.
I’m sure the fans certainly have been celebrating. The players as well?
I hope they’ve all been drinking. Newcastle Brown Ale. Hope they’ve had plenty of that
Is there a danger they are taking their eye of the ball in the Premier League?
Don’t ask me that question, ask them if they are doing that. All we can say is they’re doing very very well. They’ve set some really good standards in the opening part of the season and we know we have a tough game. Every does when they go to St James’ Park.
Do you get extra flak when you go up there?
A little bit, yeah. If you manage Sunderland you expect that.
You know all about the passion at Newcastle.
Definitely. It’s an incredibly well supported football club. When you’re up in the north east there’s not always an awful lot else at times and football plays a huge part in everybody’s life. What they want is success, everybody wants success and Newcastle at the moment are just getting a taste of it now and it makes them a difficult opponent.
Good news, no Bruno Guimaraes in the side. Does it make things easier?
Good news, he’s a really good player so it is good news but let’s be fair, they’ve got a team full of good players at the moment and I think more importantly a lot of players who were considered not good players are playing very well so that’s a sign of good management but also shows the players are working really hard to improve themselves. A lot of positives I’m sure Newcastle can take but we have to get back to that. We were a bit like that maybe a year ago ourselves so we know what it feels like and we know to try and get back and work to those levels.
On Monday you played Flynn Downes, do you see him getting more minutes in the Premier League?
I do. I think Flynn’s come on, he played really well against Liverpool and Manchester United in earlier Premier League games this season. I think the level of competition has been hard for Flynn. We’ve brought in Lucas Paqueta who is proving to be probably a deeper lying midfielder player then a 10 which we we brought Flynn Downes in to give us cover for Tomas Soucek and Declan Rice, Manuel Lanzini. So Flynn’s done well, I think he’s improving. I don’t know how many players I’ve brought in from the Championship but let me tell you, it is a lot over the years. People like Joleon Lescott, Leighton Baines, Tim Cahill, can go on and on. And quite often a lot of them don’t hit the ground running, a lot of them don’t come into the first team. Leighton Baines and Phil Jagielka for example I think didn’t play for me for six months when I was at Everton. We brought them out the Championship and they went on to be England full internationals so sometimes they have to be patient, wait their time, wait for opportunities and hopefully Flynn comes under that category and goes on to be a top player.
Earlier this week you attended a celebration event to commemorate the life of David Gold. How emotional was a day that for you?
The biggest thing I would say is there were a lot of people who were not there but the people who were, it was a brilliant service. It had lots of humour, lots of moments and genuinely seeing someone who was brought up with very little went on to play for West Ham in the youth leagues and then went on to become a chairman and owner. I think the send off he got was great. I think he would have been incredibly proud of his family for how they dealt with and done it but also I think he would be incredibly proud of West Ham and how they made the day go for the family as well.
What do you make of Newcastle now compared to a year ago? Is it simplistic to suggest if you invest a lot of money into a club that it will lead to success?
I really hope it’s not to do with spending money. I’d love to think football was not to do with spending money but if you are looking at, and I say this with real respect, I think I mentioned this the other week, I think some of the Newcastle players for a few years people saw them as complete write-offs and not good enough to be at the club. Some of them they’ve turned that round. Now that can be down to the players as individuals, it can be down to the manager, it can be down to the playing staff, it can be down to lots of reasons. But it does go to prove that if you keep working at it, stick at it, challenge it, don’t give up then you can get something. Obviously Newcastle have had a huge boost, the football club’s had a huge boost and I think about us as West Ham when we came in at West Ham, sort of pulling together the fans and the directors and the players and everybody together going in one direction, I think that’s the way Newcastle look at the moment. It’s been pulled together, players are doing so well, they’ve picked a good manager who probably at the start folk were saying you’re only going to be there a short time and then they’ll bring someone else in. Looks as if he’s easily settled in to the job and rightly so. And you look at the players who weren’t performing for them, a lot of similarities to what we’ve been like at West Ham over the last couple of years. I have to give them praise, they’re a good side to watch as well Newcastle at the moment.
It must fill you with confidence going there with having won your last two and keeping clean sheets.
It does. Winning is always the key. I would like our performances to improve and bits of performances but when I came the first couple of years ago what was important was how we get out of the problem we were in and we had to do that first and foremost. Then we started to look at how we could play better, how we would look. Now at the moment we have to make sure we pick up the wins and results and thankfully the last couple of games we’ve done a little bit of both. Good signs of performances and bits getting better. Good signs of doing right things, keeping clean sheets really important. Good signs that Jarod Bowen and Micky Antonio are getting goals now so we are beginning to get goals from areas we thought we weren’t. Hopefully it is moving in the right direction.
How much are you missing Kurt Zouma?
I think our result against Everton would tell you that Kurt is a real important part and we’ve been missing, if you look at the players we’ve missed at different parts of the season, and actually our record over the past two seasons we’re actually really really proud of. Very few injuries. Behind the scenes here our medical team we are really proud of how well we’ve done over the last couple of years but I don’t know if it’s just, I think Micky [Antonio] played, I’m using Micky as an example, but I think Micky played 60 games last year in total and I think the year before he only really played 25 games. Declan Rice ended up with 64. Now not saying they are the injured ones at the moment but I think the point I’m getting is I think sometimes the workload you’ve maybe had in a couple of years, if I say this I might be wrong but I think Liverpool might be finding that a little bit with the injuries they’ve had. The amount of games Liverpool have had over the past couple of seasons might be taking its toll a little bit in some areas and I don’t think it’s taking it’s toll on us it’s just we’ve lost some really important players – Nayef Aguerd injury at Rangers, we didn’t have Craig Dawson for six or eight weeks of the season. So we’ve had situations like that, Kurt Zouma different things. So we’ve had a few situations like that which we wish we could have avoided.
Were you hoping Harrison Ashby stayed here?
Yeah I was. I was hoping he would stay but we couldn’t get him to stay. What he was looking for regarding his package we couldn’t make. We’d known this and probably all the media had known this for a year that he’d be probably leaving, maybe six months certainly he’d be letting it known he wanted to leave so we were always going to find it difficult. We wanted to keep him, I like him, he was a Scottish boy as well which made it even better for me that I’d have liked to help him and helped his career going forward. We just couldn’t get a way of keeping him.
Is your challenge going to be that maybe there will be other clubs more appealing than West Ham?
I don’t know about that. I think if you said to Newcastle player this time last year would you rather have chosen West Ham I think they would have said all day long, you’re more appealing. So I think what you’re suggesting is that it’s really when you’re winning it becomes more appealing because we’ve been hugely appealing to Brazilian internationals, Italian internationals, German internationals. We’ve been hugely appealing to big markets. Sometimes when you’re very successful it comes very difficult for young players to get to the first team so some young players may look at it that way. But overall I think we are hugely appealing because of being a big club in London.
